


Legend of the Reborn Benders: Water

by Andrewnan223



Category: Avatar (TV)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 06:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2219106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andrewnan223/pseuds/Andrewnan223
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where all those with the ability to Bend have either died or hidden from the world, a young man must master Water Bending in order to protect the world from a mysterious man with the power to steal Bending. With the Avatar lost, this young Water Bending Novice must fight with a small group of close friends to restore balance to the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Legend of the Reborn Benders: Water

This is the first book of my Legend of the Reborn Benders four part Prologue. This takes place from the view of a character that is really the person that I wish I could be. Daniel Hawthorne is a very skilled Bender, developing techniques unlike anything the Avatar universe has seen thus far. On top of his strength, after a few very emotional conflicts with himself, he becomes someone quite admirable. If you like the Prologue, please read on, if not thanks for your time and I hope you will leave a comment telling me what it was you wish I would change. Finally if you like something about my story, find grammar mistakes, or just want to tell me I’m awesome, please leave a comment. Without farther ado, enjoy! 

 

I remember that it hurt as the hand was plunged into my chest. I could that the man in front of me was beginning to glow with a cynical red light, my vision was beginning to blur. I could see that his pupil dilated and it made me sick. This person is a monster. I don’t know why I would ever wanted to help this man. I tried to save his life, and it was now costing me mine…  
“You don’t have to think like that, you aren’t going to die. I have much more use for you alive.” His words shocked me, I’d never heard him speak, I’d never known that his voice seemed so raspy that it was almost impossible to understand him. I looked into his green eyes, the only thing visible through his blood red mask. I looked into the hatred that was visible in his eyes. This hatred that the man had for me, for anyone who had more power them him.  
“After this, you will be a cold, mindless being. Your only purpose will be to serve me. You will only live to die for me when the time is right.” With these words his hand slide from my chest, the white glove was spotless. The hand had never gone into my body, it had instead reached into my soul, pulling the very essence of me from my body. I hit the ground as though I were a brick, dropping with my face towards his feet, my nose inches from his black boots. His right hand grabbed my collar, raising me above his head as though I were a child. He looked me in the eyes as his left hand rose to my forehead.   
Placing his thumb on the bridge of my nose, his eyes glowed with that sick red light. It felt like hooks were digging into my body from all sides, trying to rip the soul from my body. Then I was no longer inside myself, I was instead watching the scene unfold. My body dropped to the ground like a sack of flour. I could see the rise and fall of my chest, but I was not moving it, I was not in control of my own body. The man stood across from my body his eyes closed, for a small eternity. He didn’t move, he didn’t even breath, he just stood there. I thought for a moment that time had stopped, I could see nothing moving, I couldn’t hear the wind. I couldn’t see anything. Then his eyes flashed open, one glowing blue, the other red. He sighed and a faint silver light came from the hole in his masked that served to supply him with air. It floated down toward my body surrounding me and slowly beginning to flow into nostril. It began circling my body, slowly sinking into the pores of my body, my nostrils, my mouth, any open area.  
“Rise!” The man said. My body trembled, then shook violently for a moment, before beginning to obey his command. For a moment I heard my lungs fill with air. A deep dark sound that I had never heard before. My eyes opened, but instead of the normal blue they had turned to a colorless black.  
“What is it you want from me, Shoufu?” The words floated into the air, without the mouth moving. It wasn’t my voice, it was instead a whisper that I could not describe. Even if it could I would not, it was too evil. “What do you ask of me, Shoufu?” he said, repeating himself  
“There are four Benders on this planet with exceptional talent. I want you to find them and capture them.” He paused turning away “Bring them to me alive so that I may absorb their abilities as I have done yours. Do you understand?”  
“Yes, I obey.” The voice spoke, the corpse began to walk away.  
“Avatar!” The man said, calling me by the title that he knew me by. The corpse stopped, and turned to face him. “You no longer have the ability to bend, I’ve taken that from you. You will have to find another way to fight. Your Ki is no longer there, so find something else that you can learn to fight. You are void now, empty space.”  
“Void….?” The voice spoke, the air around it beginning to ripple with power. “Yes, I am Void” With that, he faded into the night without another noise.”   
The man chuckled, a chuckle of someone who had just played a move that would ensure victory. His laugh was absorbed into the night air, the darkness swallowing it as though it were nothing. He turned to face me, looking me in the eye as though he could see me. Then he walked toward me, stopping an inch from my face. I was unable to move, to act at all as he whispered.  
“You shall be the last Avatar, because now your body contains nothing but Void. You have lost, Avatar. Nothing in this world can stop me now. There is no longer anything that can stand against me.” With that, he vanished. Leaving me alone to wander the forest and the world outside. Though I didn’t know it somewhere in the world a young man was just beginning to develop his Bending skills. This person would play a crucial role in the world, and since the Benders have become all but extinct and those who remained live in secrecy, his role would be unknown to all but a few lucky individuals.  
This is where my story becomes his, where I begin to wait and see how the world must unfold.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One  
I could feel the rain hitting my skin. Each drop left me feeling stronger, faster, invulnerable. Almost as if it were sinking inside me, completing a puzzle I had no idea was missing pieces. Opening my eyes I looked around me, the trees were a blur as the rain poured down around me. The darkness hided the leaves above me. The water mad mud below me. The world was a overwhelming chorus of drumming raindrops, with a background of blackened forest.  
My left arm slowly moved from my side, slicing through the rain. As each raindrop made contact with my skin it stuck to me like glue. Forming around my arm, encasing them it in a cocoon of cool water. I smiled, then- holding my right arm out- I bended the water between my hands, passing it as though levitating a small ball. The rain continued to fall, and as each drop broke the surface of my ball of water, it grew.  
As my body began to move, my right arm stretching in front of me the ball of water became a whip, then I began to almost dance, swirling around my body the water only continued to grow in size. As I reached a out in front of me throw my hand out from its resting place on my there was a stream of water moving with such speed and force that it sliced the nearest tree in half.  
Before too long I was climbing back to my feet. Sweat falling from my face and forehead mixed with the mud on the ground. Exhaustion had seeped into my muscles making it hard to move anymore. Fatigue had soaked into my bone, making them ache as I began the walk home. It took only a short ten minutes to reach home, and when I stepped onto my back porch I closed my eyes, feeling the water that had seeped into the fabric of my clothing. I focused until I felt every drop of moisture that clung to my skin, my clothes, my shoes. Throwing my hands into the air all of the water was pushed away from my body, leaving me warm and dry.   
I smiled despite my exhaustion and walked in through our back door, then took an immediate right to stair case that read to the loft that served as my room. Though my Parents weren’t rich we had inherited this house from my mother’s mother. It was big, almost 3000 square feet, and two story. My room was actually half of the second floor, and it was only accessible from the staircase I was walking up now. As my hand trailed the hardwood walls I remembered growing up somewhere far from here, visiting this Virginia Country Home every summer with my Parents. These memories were happy, and every time I found myself thinking of them I couldn’t help but smile. It had been sic years since my GrandParents had died in a car accident, leaving everything to their only child. We moved in on my twelfth birthday, and my mother and father gave me this area to myself. My Grandfather-my favorite person in the world- used this area to exercise and work on his hobbies.   
Looking around his ghostly hand remained touched on most of my possessions. Everywhere were blue prints for things like boat or mini-submarines. My Grandfather was obsessed with anything that had to do with water. As I’ve slowly developed my ability to Waterbend I soon began to see why. I felt strongest when near large bodies of water, especially the Ocean. Waterbending was taught to me by my Grandfather from a young age. Before I could even spell my name I was doing Tai Chi with him. As I got older and began to go out and lay on the grass with him, staring up at the stars, hearing stories about the Moon and the Stars. Though he often told stories about other things almost all his stories included the Moon. Many also included people with the ability to control the elements, Bending them to their will.   
As my footstep echoed off the floor of the loft that I now called home, I laughed to myself, understanding the truth hidden in those childish tales. They had so much weight to my Grandfather, and they were beginning to have weight to me as well. It has been almost three years since I discovered my powers. I was fifteen when I was almost drowned by incoming tide on the shore of Daytona Beach. When I was pulled under, about to pass out from lack of oxygen I saw the Moon in the distance. Though it was day I could see the moon as though it were full. I felt a tug in my chest and then the water seemed to part for me, providing much needed oxygen to my lungs.   
From that day on I was able to control water. At first I wasn’t sure how I was doing it, I didn’t feel the flow of Ki in my body as it bent to my will. It wasn’t until a year ago that a realized what I was actually capable of. Then on, I Bent every second I could. Even waking up at 1am to sneak out. It was just something I felt good doing. It was something that made me feel powerful. It was something that…  
There was a noise in the kitchen that stole my attention. It sounded like… I had no idea. Whirling around I slowly walked down the stairs, as silently as I could. The noise started getting louder, the walls began to shake as if they would be toppled by the inhuman sound. With each step I felt as if the world were holding me back, dragging me back to my room. As I took the final step that led to the ground, there was silence in the house. The walls stopped vibrating. The weight holding me back vanished. My heartbeat returned to normal. Fear held me in place, awaiting a death that I knew must be around the corner.  
“There is no need to be afraid, Daniel. I wouldn’t hurt James Owens Grandson.” the man who spoke stepped out in front of me, his black hair was specked with grey. His blue eyes had a look that I hadn’t seen in a long time, one that told me this man was a master at whatever he did. Being over six feet he towered over me by almost a foot. He was smiling, but I could see that the smile was intended more for himself then for me. There was a sinister look to it that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “Tell me Daniel,” his eyes narrowed, getting dark as the tone of his voice turned cold “Do you know where your Parents are?” My heart stopped, the sound began again, much louder this time. I could feel the house vibrate around me, threatening to collapse. Just when I thought I couldn’t take it any longer, the water main behind him burst and water exploded toward me, hitting me square in the chest and throwing me through the back door.  
I landed hard on my back, the air getting knocked from my lungs. I wheezed, struggling to fill my lungs.  
“I thought that you would be able to stop that! It looks like I broke my promise.” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess that means I can hurt you now. I won’t have to hold back” The rain around me stopped as he held up his hand, then thrusting his hand over his shoulder the water that once made me feel strong hit me like bullets. I was thrown into the mud, once again I gasped for air. My lungs were now beginning to burn and there were black dots all across my vision. I never knew that I was so powerless against someone with my abilities. I never thought that would be in something like this.  
“Well I guess your Grandfather was wrong about you being a natural. You are nothing like him.” He laughed at me, then I heard the rain stop again. My body was rocketed by more bullets. I saw my vision turn red as my mind -starved of oxygen- registered what he had said. I felt strength surge through me, the weight that moments ago weighed down my body vanished. I pushed off of the ground, the mud became solid and helped to push me to my feet.  
I met the mans eyes, my jaw set as I took a stance that my Grandfather used often. With my right hand almost fully outstretched, and my left close to my body I was ready for almost anything. As I looked him in the eye he snickered. Then, with a swirl of hands he vanished in a cloud of steam. I spun around and saw that the entire backyard was filled with a thick cloud. This fog, steam, mist whatever it was was thick enough that I couldn’t see more then a few inches in front of my face.  
“This was a technique that James enjoyed. He called it Zero Visibility. It was my least favorite, at least until I learned…” I compressed the moisture in the air directly to the left of me, then spinning arms around while turning my body I sent a stream of water toward him, hitting where I knew he would be. I felt the impact and immediately returned the water to my side. Returning to my previous stance I pulled more moisture from the air around me, allowing me to see a few feet ahead of me. In a flash I plunged my hand into the water and forming a wall froze it solid.  
The wall saved my life, as three large shards of ice shattered my makeshift shelter into a thousand tiny cubes, which I swiftly turned into water and threw back toward the direction that the shards came from. I felt no impact this time and was instead rewarded with a whip across my left ear. I dropped, my sudden burst of energy completely gone. I was once again powerless against the man who claimed to know my Grandfather. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes were black books, untouched by the mud that I laid in.

* * *

My eyes flew open as something cold touched my skin. I was alert for only a moment when I felt something soothing touch my ear. I could see anything, a cloth of some kind was covering my eyes. But I could feel restrains over my chest, waist and legs. I couldn’t move anything except my head.  
“If you don’t want to die, then you need to stay still.” The man who had attacked me said. He was the source of cold. “I’m sorry about all that, but I needed test your ability to fight for your life. Your Parents are perfectly fine. There are things you need to understand. Things that your Grandfather hadn’t told you before he had died. Things that you wouldn’t understand until now.” The cloth that was covering my eyes was removed and I could see that I was strapped to a metal table. I looked around and saw that we were in the basement of my house. The damp moldy smile made me feel like I was going to sneeze, it always had. “I’m going to keep you strapped in, so you won’t freak out and attack me. You need to listen to this, I swear on my Bending that this is completely true.”  
“I listen to your story” I said, looking him in the eye. I was no longer scared because I knew that if this man wanted me killed I would already be dead. He was certainly strong enough and I had been unconscious for at least an hour. “Though I will not promise that I will believe it, or that I will not attack you the moment that I get out of these restraints. I’m not one for trusting, especially suspicious strangers who almost tear down my house with noise, or who turn me into a human punching bag either.”  
“About the almost tearing the house down thing. I wash’t actually making the house shake, I was bending the water in your blood. That is a technique call ‘BloodBending’. It is very difficult to master and most people can only use it on a full moon, like last night was.” He cleared his throat before continuing “What I was doing was bending the water in your entire body. Making your muscles shake and causing the eardrum to vibrate, its a very effective way of confusing your opponent and making them think you are far stronger then you actually are.”  
“Can I learn that? That sounds like it will come in handy one day”  
He laughed, and he looked like he was thinking back to a time that was filled joy. Then he frowned before saying, “No I can’t teach you to Blood Bend. Your Grandfather forbid me from ever doing that. If you ever learn how to do it you’ll have to learn it yourself, which is almost impossible.” He smiled warmly, and it made me think that the side of him I saw before was only reserved for battle. He was very similar to my Grandfather, serious only when the moment called for it. It made me ache to think that this man was so similar to him. I thought about him for a moment before he continued. “My name is Kevin Clare, you will call me Master or Master Clare. I’m going to teach you how to Water Bend like a master.”  
I started to object but he raised his hand to stop me. “It’s not negotiable, it was James’ final wish, and I will fulfill it.” He looked me deep in the eye, that fierce serious expression hardened his face again. He paused, looking at me as though I were some project that he had to complete. “You Daniel Hawthorne, are a natural born Bender. You have mastered novice level bending without proper training in record time. It usually takes grown men years to learn with training what you learned in months without it. James’ blood definitely runs through your veins alright.” He cleared his throat again  
“Story time!” He face went from serious, to playful. Then as he began talking he was serious once again.  
“When your mother was your age, about seventeen I think, I showed up on your Grandfathers doorstep. There was a story about a man in Bristle Virginia with the ability to heal the sick with miracles, and my mother was ill will cancer, so I traveled here to find out if those stories were true. While hunting this miracle-man I was in the woods, following a lead that told me he was known to live in a cabin somewhere deep in the woods. While walking I got lost and was unable to find my way out until after dark. This was back in the day, so most of the woods were still filled with wolves and other things like bears. And everyone knows that said creatures become more active at night. So you can probably see where this is going.” Master Clare rubbed his right shoulder, as if remembering something painful.  
“I was attacked by wolves, and when I couldn’t outrun them anymore one caught up to me and ripped my shoulder open. Your Grandfather showed up out of nowhere and cut them down. H-he…. He grabbed me and carried me to his cabin and healed me with water. Like what I did with you, while you slept. I was passed out for days, so long that when I finally woke, I had to drink a gallon of water before I could beg him to help my mother.” His eyes were starting to get red and puffy. He stood up and walked halfway across the room and with his back me he continued. “He said that he was unable to heal something like that. So… so my mother died a few days later. I didn’t find out for a few days. Your Grandfather was there with me when I found out. So he asked me a question  
‘Do you wan the power to protect the people that can’t protect themselves?’ I told him I didn’t know what he meant. So he showed me what Water Bending was. I was under his wing for five years. At that time he told me it was time for me to go elsewhere and learn to use my abilities to help people, like I had promised him I would.” He turned around, his eyes had returned to normal and he was very serious when he started talking again. “When you were ten years old your Granddad found me, and he told me he was in trouble. He told me about a person who had discovered the ability to bend Ki. He also said that this person was somehow able to steal another persons ability to Bend, and add it onto his own abilities.”  
“Wait! How is that possible!” I struggled to keep myself from yelling, I didn’t want to upset someone who knew my Grandfather so well. “How can you steal someone’s abilities like that?”  
“It’s not impossible, if you have the ability to Bend Ki. If a person can Bend the Ki in another persons body, then absorb it into their own, then it would give them that ability. He had only one weakness, he could only Bend one element at a time. That’s why your Granddad was so eager to find me.He wanted to make sure that I would train you to Bend so you could fight if he and I were to fail…” He walked next to me and kneeled down till we were face to face. “Your Grandfather failed and now it’s my turn to try. First though I have to train you. So tell me Daniel” He reached into a bowl of water and as he raised his voice he sliced through my restraints with the water. “Are you going to avenge him?!”  
I sat up, my body aching from being locked in place for hours. I stood then looked back at him. “When do I start?”


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2  
I started that day, but my training began in a way that was very unorthodox. Shifu Clare had me in water for hours. Just sitting there, or laying on my back. He would have me lay there listening to his stories. At first he talked about his training with my Grandfather. Then told me oh him and my mother being friends. Of how he watched her and fell in love with her. Then he told me of all the promises they had to keep when Grandpa went off to fight the man that he called Crenate, which he didn’t know why he called him that either. As much as i enjoyed listening to Shifu Clare, I soon became frustrated. After three weeks I had not Bent at all. Though every day he said the same thing. “You failed your test, you’ll have to try again tomorrow.”  
He wouldn’t tell me what the test was, just that I had yet to pass it. That was all he said, and soon it was starting to piss me off. After two weeks of this nothingness, I finally snapped. “What am I supposed to be doing?!”  
“Hmm?” He said, looking at me over his book as I lay in a lake  
“Every day you say that I failed my test, but I have no idea what the test is supposed to be. How can I work to pass my test when I have no idea what that test is! You told me that my Mom and Dad agreed to this training when my Grandfather died, but I don’t think they would like me not LEARNING anything!” I yelled at him. He closed his book before speaking  
“You have failed your test for the day. We can begin tomorrow. Have a good night’s rest, Daniel.” He stood and walked towards the house. I felt the water around me rise with my anger. I felt a current form, and a whirlpool began to spin around me.   
“I’m talking to you!” I scream, and as he turned around I threw myself at him with the force of the whole lake. Before I could make contact I felt something in the air. Almost as if it were drier, like the moisture had been pulled from it. A millisecond before collision my momentum stopped, the whirlpool that was propelling me forward fell to the ground. Shifu Clare had stopped me with a wave of his hand. With barely a movement, he dodged me and the water that served as my attack became his as I was swallowed whole.   
When he levitated me -encased in a sphere of water- I felt something…. a twitch in the water. Then with the same speed that he used to stop me in my tracks, he threw me into lake. I felt another twitch in the water, then I was thrown to the surface, my hands and feet frozen in place. Only my head and chest were not encased in the block of ice that he formed around me. Once again I was helpless, once again I was defeated.  
“What did you feel?” Shifu Clare asked me, meeting my gaze as the ice meted around me.   
“I don’t know for sure…” I said, my head bowed in defeat “It was like a twitch in the water.”   
“You pass.” He said, and as I felt the twitch in the water again I was raised to my feet by waves he created. “Look at me, and tell me what it was.”  
I thought for a long time, and then I met his eyes. “It was the current. I felt the current that you created using you Bending.”  
“Correct!” He was all smiles now, he seemed happy and when he reached out and placed his hand on my shoulder I knew that he was genuinely proud of me. Once again this strange man reminded me of my Grandfather. He was truly something. “Now you have to learn how to BE water.” He smiled from ear to ear.   
“How do I become water? Is that even possible? I mean wouldn’t I die?”   
“You don’t literally become the water, you have to figure out the meaning yourself. You have to figure the rest out for yourself.” He turned away from me and started to walk back into the house. “You can send the night in the lake. Don’t come inside for anything.” He opened the front door and walked inside, leaving me alone in the lake. I leaned back in the water and floated.   
Closing my eyes I began to listen to water. I felt nothing, heard nothing for a long time. I tried to calm my mind as my Grandfather had taught me. Listening to the sounds of the water, the fish and the weeds moving in the water around me. I couldn’t hear anything…. I couldn’t feel anything.  
“Argh!!!” I pushed the water away from me, creating a wave. Frustration made me want to move, want to throw things. Then I remembered what Grandpa said, ‘When you’re angry and you need to move around, do Tai Chi, it’s a lot better for you than throwing your hand through a wall. Plus you will find it helps you focus.’ Then he would wink at me and continue to work on his model boats or whatever else he had going on at the time.   
I stood up straight, my arms at my side. Closing my eyes I visualized my Ki. It was a yellow light in the core of my body, warm and flowing. I began to move my body, doing the motions that my Grandfather had taught me so many years ago. With each motion the Ki flowed through me. Every time I flexed my fingers or moved my leg I could fell the water part to make room for my body, bending to my will. I felt the anger begin to boil up inside me, fighting to be released. I continued to fight it off, my right hand touching the surface of the water -leaving it undisturbed- not breaking the surface. Raised my hand in an arc, but the water followed me, clinging to my skin. Only when my anger finally bust forward did it leave my skin. I released my Ki all at once, exploding it forward with my entire body. Without opening my eyes I could feel exactly what was happening.   
A gush of water as tall as I am shot into the air, throwing its self forward with the full force of my anger. It was thrown from my position ten feet out from shore to touch the wood of our dock. Instead of being stopped as I expected the water sliced through the dock like a knife through butter, splitting the wood down the center until it reach the sandy shore. Shooting almost a full ten feet into the air, the splash continued for a long moment, falling to the lake below like rain.  
Opening my eyes, I felt calm, cool and collected. I was not phased by the destruction caused by the water. Normally water was calm, as I was now. Though from time to time it would explode outward, destroying everything in the wake of its approach. Water was either a a cooling comfort or a enemy with unmatched patients.   
My thoughts stopped me, I began to explore this idea. I began to see things about water that I never had before. I saw that water was patient and flowing, following the path of gravity without question. Water was alive, it breathed and fed and dried up. It formed large bodies or was trapped deep below ground. Water was much more then I had ever imagined.  
“Water is alive.” I said aloud, the thought replaying in my head, because it didn’t sound quite right. It felt as though a piece was missing from the puzzle that i had just discovered. “No… water IS life!” The truth of my words hit me so hard it threw me into action.  
Closing my eyes I allowed myself to sink into the water, fully submerged I floated to the muddy bottom. I opened my eyes once again, sitting up with my legs crossed and my hands in my lap. I put my hands around my mouth then slowly pulled them away, leaving fresh, breathable air around me. Then I calmed my mind, thinking nothing. Doing nothing but holding back the water so I could breath. I sat there for a long time, long enough that the moon rose high in the sky, shining its light on me, lighting up my face. The moonlight soaked into my skin, and though it was not full it gave me strength. For a moment I allowed my eyes to close, feeling the water that slowly shifted around my skin.  
Taking in a deep breath I imagined the the water around me being pushed back, and felt my skin become drier as well as my clothes. Keeping my eyes closed I reached out and touched the water, breaking the surface with my index finger. Then everything slowed down around me. Everything started to make sense to me.  
“Water takes on the shape of the container that it is in. It moves toward the direction that gravity pulls it. Only the Moon has the power to pull water from the Earth. The Moon is the true Water Bending.” My eyes flew open, my concentration was broken and the water that was being pushed away from me once again came into contact with my skin. The Moon Bends all the water on the planet. Water is nothing but a tool to be controlled. It is collective, submissive, and formless. It is the forces of nature that shape water… but it is water that shapes the world. So water can’t just be submissive. I… I see now, now I know what water is.

 

* * *

I was floating when I heard the back door open. I was completely still when Shifu Clare stepped into the water, walking then swimming to the place where I lay, moving to the flow of the water, bending to the unstoppable power of gravity.  
“What did you learn?”  
“That water is a tool” I said without hesitation  
“What do you mean by that?” I shifted, the water parting around me as I face him, looking into his blue eyes I began to talk.  
“Water is a tool used by everything. Even the smallest fruit fly uses water to survive, without this one thing it would be impossible to survive. Water holds the power of life and death, it is necessary for all life. Though this is true, and by this ideal water holds more power than anything but oxygen, it bends to the will of all forces on Earth. Water collects wherever it is allowed, flowing with gravity downhill. But even man can control water. This lake we are in used to go all the way up there.” I pointed to an area halfway between the water’s edge and the back porch our house. There was a large wooden pole that my Grandfather used to mark the place where he began to drain the lake. It was the waters edge almost fifty years ago.  
“Water is powerful, but it is still very weak. It has the power to decide life and death, but it has no power to control that decision. What is life, but life is not water. Life is the combination of the actions of people, and nature. Water just happens to be one of those things that decides it. By that standard.” I stopped, pausing to make sure I phased this right. “Water is powerless and the forces that control it, like the Moon are actually the things that are powerful.”   
He smiled, his blue eye bright with happiness and excitement. “You pass. You have seen what water is to you, and you have realized that water gives us power to control life. That it is a weapon to be used, but also I tool to be crafted. You have become a much better Water Bender because of it, and now your training can actually begin.” propelling himself backward with Bending he was on the shore in seconds. I followed, also using my Bending to make it easier.   
“The first thing you will have to do is Shifu the different types of water. Or if you want to be specific the different states of water. You have a good enough understanding of water, now it is time you learn to understand ice, and steam.” He motioned for me to follow, then started to walk toward the house. “Did you ever find the secret room? The entrance is in your room.”  
“No I had no idea there was a secret room in the house.”   
“Did I say room?” He stopped at the bottom of my staircase, the began to climb the steps. “I meant a secret floor. A basement under your basement.”   
“How did I never find the entrance?”   
“You never looked.” At the top of the staircase he stepped to the left, turned to face the wall. “All you had to door was touch the wall.” He pressed his hand into the wall, and it pushed open. Revealing a staircase. “You first.”


End file.
